Alexander Elkholm is the only queer artist I’m aware of whose practice is shaped by karate. “I did it for ten years as a child. It’s a very controlled form of movement, and it’s all about maximising potential: how fast can you kick, how balanced can you move?”, they tell me over a coffee in the Dazed office. After hanging up their keigogi for the last time, they later found a similar, but more liberating, release in dancing. “When I dance, I can understand emotions that I didn’t even know I had. It’s become one of my main mediums, and the way that bodies move is very prominent in my work.” Their debut solo show, Exhalation, launches tonight at Algha’s Plantroom, London. Their work carries a kind of balletic elegance, bodies not sparring but embracing; backs arched and limbs entwined; a sense of poise and coiled energy. 

Ekholm first moved to London three years ago, which they describe as a “very expansive experience”. After training in industrial design, they began to practice visual art and photography (one of their early commissions was a project shooting WHOLE Festival for Dazed). Exhalation is partly a celebration of the London queer community where they have found a sense of belonging, capturing its moments of intimacy, tenderness, vulnerability and ecstasy. 

Intended to communicate different facets of the same message, the 28 images which make up the exhibition are split into three sections: captured intimacy, personal intimacy and constructed intimacy. Combining digital and film photography, some of the shots were taken in a studio, some at high-octane queer parties and others at Ekholm’s homes (one stand-out image, depicting a close friend emerging from the ocean beneath a vivid blue sky, was taken in Greece). 

There is also an abstract work – created by capturing the embers of a flame through a long exposure – which Ekholm describes as integral to the meaning of the exhibition. “It’s an abstract depiction of how I see my own worldview: this soft wave of calm, and a lot of black, which is essentially the unknown. In life, there are moments of peak energy when we’re incredibly happy – when we travel, or we get a new job – but the base level [for me] is this peace.”

These images are erotic, and in some cases explicitly so (some of the penises on display wouldn’t pass the BBC’s apocryphal Mull of Kintyre test), but they carry an air of tranquillity and calmness rather than lurid titillation. “The message is about the power of softness,” they tell Dazed. “It almost reflects my spiritual beliefs. If you let everyone be who they are without interfering too much, we will have much more peace and everyone will be much happier. I think the exhibition comes together under that.” The exhibition features very few faces, which is a deliberate omission. “A face tells such a strong story, and eyes dictate what you're allowed to feel. This exhibition is instead about the body as a form of communication, because bodies can't lie in the same way.”

All of the subjects featured are queer people, some of whom Ekholm was friends with before, some of whom he became friends with during and after the process of shooting them. Even when they did have a prior relationship with their subject, however, they didn’t want that to intrude upon the work. Instead, they want to capture an unvarnished, spontaneous and immediate kind of intimacy. “I don't want to interfere with what’s happening,” they say. “One of my guiding principles [as an artist] is that I don’t disturb the energy. I want to bring out the most authentic expression in people and make them feel comfortable and relaxed. Even when there’s a narrative, or it’s a pre-constructed image, I don't want the emotions to be constructed.”

In addition to their history in dance and karate, Ekholm is strongly inspired by sound and music. “I think sound is the best medium, because it's so intuitive and it's instantly emotive; you know what you feel when you hear something. So electronic music is a strong influence,” they say.  Most of the contemporary work they’re inspired by, across different mediums, is concerned with the body: they cite contemporary fashion designers like Michaela Stark, design collective playbody, the latex wear designer Abi Gotgrove and her “her architectural abstraction of desire and attraction, visual artist Hezen and DJs like Juliana Huxtable and DJ Fashion”. 

“I draw influence from all the people I encounter who actively utilise their body and embrace bodily intelligence, from the people I've been fortunate enough to meet and the community I have found a home in,” they say. Exhalation captures that community in all its sweaty, sensuous glory.

Alexander Elkholm’s Exhalation is showing at Algha’s Plantroom, London, from 11am to 8pm on 20 March 2026. The private view is on 19 March from 6.30pm to 9.30pm.